Yogendra Yadav is among the top leaders of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). For many years before that, this former professor of political science could be seen on television at election time, holding forth sagely in his calm, measured style on the factors and prospects that would determine the electoral fortunes of parties.
An organisation he worked for, the Centre for Study of Developing Societies in Delhi, would partner with media organisations to produce election forecasts. He would read the tea leaves in the turbulent cup of Indian democracy, and predict numbers.
This time, Professor Yadav got it badly wrong. After having a survey conducted, he predicted 51 seats for his own party, AAP, in the Delhi state assembly just days before polling. They won 67 out of 70, reducing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to a paltry three, and the Congress of Rahul and Sonia Gandhi to non-existent zero.
The results prompted BJP’s official ally Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray (note: They’re not really friends), son of the infamous Bal Thackeray, to remark that the people of Delhi had shown that a tsunami is bigger than a wave.
He made no bones of the fact that the wave he was referring to was the “Modi wave,” which had swept the BJP to power at the national level in May 2014 and also saw them finish first in a series of state elections after, including one in the Shiv Sena’s home state of Maharashtra.
No one saw the Delhi AAP tsunami coming. So what just happened?
Everyone and their cats now have an opinion about the outcome, so I’ll just stick to the numbers. A survey conducted by CSDS (the Delhi think tank Yadav used to work for) after the elections published in The Indian Express reported that 66% of the poor who live in slums had voted for AAP, against 22% for BJP. Another 57% of the lower classes had voted for AAP, versus 29% for BJP. The gap narrowed as income levels rose, reducing to 47-43 in AAP’s favour among the upper classes.
The National Sample Survey Organisation data for 2011-12 reported that 81% of Delhi’s households had a monthly income of Rs13,500 or less. I am not sure if this maps perfectly with the CSDS definitions of the poor and lower class, since I don’t have access to their data, but it is likely that there is a large overlap.
In this day and age, when a cup of coffee in any of the smart chain coffee shops that have mushroomed all over Delhi costs over Rs100, it is quite clear that the vast majority of Delhiites have barely enough to survive.
If they ever enter those coffee shops, it is as waiters and cleaners. This majority has voted overwhelmingly for AAP. The result is the tally of three for BJP and zero for Congress.
For decades, the Congress, which, under Indira Gandhi, had amended the preamble of India’s constitution to include the words “socialist” and “secular,” was the carrier of the hopes of the poor and the marginalised. Then, after Indira Gandhi passed away and the country’s politics started to change, they faced a challenge for those votes from regional parties that promised to look after the interests of specific castes.
Thus, the Yadav chieftains, Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad, and Dalit leader Mayawati, became prominent in India’s electoral heartland of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
With everyone else playing different versions of the politics of minority, it was left to the BJP to play the politics of majority. The BJP started to rise, and the Congress began its decline, punctuated by a surprise victory in the 2004 national elections. In those elections, the BJP ran a campaign under the slogan “India Shining.” The BJP campaign was all about being smart and savvy.
Touring in Lucknow, Amethi, and Rae Bareli (the constituencies, respectively, of Vajpayee, Rahul Gandhi, and Sonia Gandhi), I was struck by the near absence of BJP workers on the ground.
I asked a party worker about this at the BJP office in Lucknow, and was told that they were relying on unsolicited, automated phone calls in the recorded voice of Vajpayee to win them the seat.
Vajpayee didn’t need even those phone calls to win his seat, such was his stature. However, that mixture of arrogance and complacency arguably cost the BJP the elections. Although the Congress won only 145 seats in the house of 543, it finished ahead of the BJP’s 138, and was able to form an alliance government at the centre, with support from the regional caste parties and the left.
This government had two terms. In Delhi, the Congress state-government of Sheila Dikshit had three terms. However, they have come to be associated with corruption, nepotism, and the rule of old elites who are cut off from the masses. They are the party of sons and daughters of prime ministers and maharajas.
The BJP, which played on religious sentiments, has also reached the profitable limits of that brand of politics. In the national elections of 2014 under Modi, they won on a slogan of “sabka saath, sabka vikas,” meaning “with everyone, for the development of all.”
The image of Modi as a man who had risen from being an impoverished chai wallah’s son to a prime ministerial candidate, helped.
The AAP in Delhi has taken the baton from Congress, casteist parties, and even Modi. It took away the bulk of the Congress voters with its simple promises of cheap electricity, free water, schools, colleges, affordable healthcare, and freedom from extortion by police and municipal authorities.
BJP’s vote share remained largely unaffected, falling from 33% in the previous Delhi polls in 2013 to 32.1% now. However, Modi is now seen on TV hobnobbing with Barack Obama in expensive suits. Kejriwal is the common man who’s been hobnobbing with the chaiwallahs and autowallahs.
As prime minister, Modi has a job to do and protocols to follow. His popularity is still largely undiminished. Kejriwal and the AAP have shown though, that the BJP cannot count on Modi’s popularity to win elections if they forget that the fortunes of a vast majority of Indians are still not shining.
With AAP, class is decisively back as a factor in Indian elections.